Mac only: The New York Times' David Pogue reviews Parallels Workstation for Mac OS X ,…
Read more Read more

While there's no easy way to bring down the starting price of a new Mac, there are ways to save money if you're looking to go top-of-the-line on extras, specifically memory. For example, when I bought my MacBook Pro last month, I saved over $300 by upgrading the RAM myself, a process requiring only a few minutes. Here's how I did it.

Advertisement

Advertisement

First of all, a quick glance at the economics: The bargain basement MacBook Pro from Apple will set you back $1,999.00 with 512MB of RAM (hardly enough for a system running OS X, in my opinion). To really boost the power, I grabbed 2 x 1GB sticks of RAM from Newegg, which cost around $170. Had I ordered the 2GB RAM upgrade from Apple, the price of my MBP would have jumped $500.

Seems ridiculous for a five minute procedure and some cheap RAM, right? Apple's documentation for upgrading your MacBook Pro's memory should give you a pretty good idea of what's involved, but if you're still not convinced that upgrading the RAM yourself is doable, check out the video I made of my upgrade. (Music courtesy of Rayza via CCHits)

New social web app CCHits is a digg-style directory of Creative Commons licensed music tracks.
Read more Read more

It really is that easy. In the off chance that you get everything back together and your MBP isn't booting up, you probably didn't get the memory pushed in all the way - open it up and make sure. Oh, and remember to unplug your computer before attempting any of this.

Hopefully that gives you an idea of just how simple the upgrade process is. If the MacBook Pro isn't your cup of tea, you can also follow these official Apple instructions on how to upgrade the RAM on your:

For me, the cheap upgrade to the full 2GB of onboard RAM made the MacBook Pro a much more viable option. The Apple premium can definitely be hard to swallow, so when you make a purchase that big, every dollar you save feels pretty good.

Anyone out there considering the Mac switch? Let us know if this helps your decision, or what other factors are on your mind in the comments or at tips at lifehacker.com.

Adam Pash is an associate editor for Lifehacker who likes his Mac but doesn't like to spend too much moola. His special feature Hack Attack appears every Tuesday on Lifehacker. Subscribe to the Hack Attack RSS feed to get new installments in your newsreader.